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Will the Pope raise the plight of Buddhists and Hindus in Bangladesh? Crisis in the Chittagong Hill Tracts

Will the Pope raise the plight of Buddhists and Hindus in Bangladesh? Crisis in the Chittagong Hill Tracts

Sawako Utsumi and Lee Jay Walker

Modern Tokyo Times

The international media in certain Western and Islamic dominated nations are awash about the Pope using “a fake ethnic name,” in relation to Bengali Muslims in Myanmar. However, how come the same media isn’t asking for the Pope to raise the serious issue of de-Hinduization throughout Bangladesh? Likewise, will the same media ask the Pope to focus on the rich Buddhist and Hindu reality of the Chittagong Hill Tracts that is being destroyed by endless Bengali Muslim migration?

Of course, the Chittagong Hill Tracts and the region of Rakhine in Myanmar share certain common themes. This applies to the devastating legacy of past Islamic invasions in this part of Asia; the British Empire cutting up India and handing over the Chittagong Hill Tracts to the rule of Muslim leaders; mass migration of Bengali Muslims under the British Empire to mainly Buddhist Rakhine; and ongoing Bengali Muslim migration in recent times to the Chittagong Hill Tracts and Rakhine, thereby endangering Buddhists and Hindus respectively.

In 1941, the Hindu population of what was to become Bangladesh in the future was approximately 28 percent. By 2011, the Hindu population had fallen to just below 9 percent and growing Islamist militancy in Bangladesh will lead to a further decline. Hence, it is well and fine for the Pope to talk about religious freedom in Myanmar but will he also stress the utter pressure that Hindus face in Bangladesh? Equally important, will the Pope focus on the plight of indigenous Buddhists and Hindus who face Islamization by stealth based on massive Bengali Muslim migration in the Chittagong Hill Tracts?

Ironically, in relation to the international mass media, it isn’t lost on certain individuals that in Bangladesh several writers and bloggers have been hacked to death in recent times by Sunni Islamists. In other words, from the demise of Hinduism and Buddhism in history in places that include Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Chittagong Hill Tracts, and Pakistan; to the reality that only Sunni Islamists are using religion to kill in the name of religion in Europe; and to the reality that Sunni Islamists are butchering bloggers and writers in modern-day Bangladesh – then it isn’t surprising that Buddhists, Tribal groups, and Hindus all fear endless Bengali Muslim migration and Islamist terrorism in Rakhine.

Hence, will the international media be fixated on the plight of Buddhists and Hindus in modern-day Bangladesh when the Pope speaks in this nation? Equally, will Western and Islamic media groups demand that the Pope raises the plight of indigenous Buddhists and Hindus in the Chittagong Hill Tracts who face Islamization based on the consequences of endless Bengali Muslim migration?

Also, if, like reported, the Pope will meet Bengali Muslims in Bangladesh who have fled Rakhine then will the Pope meet indigenous Buddhists and Hindus from the Chittagong Hill Tracts in Bangladesh? After all, Buddhists and Hindus face religious persecution and having their homeland taken over by Bengali Muslims in the Chittagong Hill Tracts?

Sadly, it appears that Gulf petrodollars and Western interests don’t coincide with the rights of Buddhists and Hindus when it comes to this part of Asia. Hence, if the Pope meets Bengali Muslims who have fled Rakhine in Bangladesh but the same religious leader ignores the plight of Buddhists and Hindus in the Chittagong Hill Tracts and Rakhine – then the only conclusion is that Abrahamic faiths are colluding together despite the reality that Sunni Islamists are also cleansing indigenous Christians in several nations throughout the Middle East.